icewm light weight desktop

I am totally shifted to icewm and I am a newbie on this icewm. that's why I am
asking some questions, may be very basic to you all but I don't have much
knowledge about it.

1) is it possible to get a customised menu where I'll have some very
frequently accessed entries like sylpheed-claws, mplayer etc and nothing
else ?

2) how to create shortcuts on desktop ?

[Thomas]
Use a program such as rox-filer [1] or 'idesk' (search LG.net for that
one, there was an article about it not so long ago). You're also
suffering from a fundamental lack of understanding about what a desktop
environment is, and what a window manager is. I'm not going to cover it
here again - see any of the recent LG releases within the last six
months. Essentially the term "desktop" isn't. It's just the
root-window.

I'll definitely go through those article. what window manager do you use?

Now a million-dollar question. is it practically possible to run
K-desktop environment on xfce or icewm window manager ? if possible
then how ? I am too much interested to do such an experiment.

[Thomas]
You clearly don't pay enough attention to reading the LG, if at all. :)
[2,3]. I suppose you ought to read the recent TAG entries as well [4,5,6].

Only where those window managers are EWMH compliant [3], for which icewm
seems to be. This allows things like the kde kicker and gnome's taskbar
to be handled correctly from the window manager that will run 'inside'
of the KDE or GNOME environment. Effectively this process is using
Session Management [2], although in reading that, you would need to
replace the current running window manager in GNOME with icewm. You
can't use "icewm --replace" as that's specific to FVWM, hence you should
use:

killall metacity && sleep 1 && icewm &

Then you'd have to save your session before you logged out (via
gnome-session-properties). I have to say that I absolutely hate
session managers. I can't stand them. They're terrible at what they do
and what they do, is second rate.

If you want to use KDE instead, the process can get a bit trickier -
I have heard rumours of the use of candles and goats, but....

KDE is started via the 'startkde' script. If you edit that script what
you might see is a line such as:

ksmserver

which starts the window manager (kwin by default). To start fvwm you
should add the option "-w icewm" to the ksmserver line, and save the
file. On typing 'startkde' this should then launch icewm as the window
manager of choice.

Of course, all of this is theory - I don't use icewm so I am just
applying what I already know.

[Ben]
Thomas already mentioned that you're suffering from a bit of confusion
in this regard. You don't "create shortcuts on desktop"; you run an
application that allows you to create clickable icons linked to
applications. My favorite is "coolicon", which is available as a
standard Debian package; it does not come with particularly exciting
icons - but you can use any XPM image as an icon, and it's very
flexible, powerful, and lightweight.

You can also create clickable links on the IceWM toolbar - here's my
~/.icewm/toolbar file as an example:

The first string after "prog" is the 'hover label' for the icon, the
second one is the 16x16 XPM image to be used, and the third one is the
program to execute. Simple and easy.

Furthermore, IceWM allows you to associate programs with other toolbar
entities (the mail notification icon, the CPU activity icon, the clock,
etc.) See the "preferences" file - same locations as the "menu" file -
and search for the word 'Command' (the variables will be MailCommand,
ClockCommand, etc.)

3) how to add wallpaper ?

[Ben]
You can use "icewmbg", or just use the standard X commands (i.e., "xsetbg").

4) can I add application-button, applet to panel which I could do in KDE ?

[Chris]
I'm an icewm boy. I can answer two of your questions. In your home
directory, once you save your preferences with the program called
'icepref', you will have a directory called .icewm. There will be a
file called preferences.

For a background image (wallpaper), set the following line:

DesktopBackgroundImage="myfile.jpg"

In this case, a jpeg file will represent your wallpaper.

I have attached another file in that directory called programs. It
represents your menu items. The file that I have included is the one
that I use. Modify this as you like. In it you will see menu entries,
and within each menu entry, you will see prog entries. The prog entries
are the selections within each menu.

Actually, I have attached both (preferences and programs) files. If you
don't have icepref, just create the directory .icewm in your home
directory, and copy the attached files into that new directory.

[Adam]
If you're using a Desktop Environment like KDE or GNOME, why do you
need a win manager at all, except to literally "manage windows;" that
is, what's the difference between Metacity or Icewm or Sawfish if you're
already using GNOME with all it's icons, menus, etc.

[Thomas]
Because KDEs and GNOMEs framework are such that you can use different
window managers within them as long as they're EWMH-compliant. It just
so happens that GNOME uses metacity now as its window manager or choice.
Before that, it was sawfish.

[Adam]
As "stand-alone"
win managers, sawfish and metacity don't seem to do much (on my system)
-- as compared to window maker or enlightentment or fvwm etc -- yet
sawfish and metacity are the "window managers" of GNOME, which doesn't,
as far as I know, have a win manager of its own.

[Thomas]
That's right, it doesn't. It's allowed for the choice to be down to the
user. Of course, most don't bother changing it, because the options
that GNOME gives them aren't dependant on the window manager being used,
but rather how GTK will react to those events; in the same way that the
options GNOME allows for affect the gpanel, etc.

[Adam]
I don't understand the relationship of a window manager, such as sawfish,
to a full desktop environment such as GNOME. If I want to go with a
window manager, I use window maker or enlightenment and customize it,
otherwise, I use KDE or GNOME for the "desktop experience." Can anybody
explain what the relationship between a window manager and a Desktop
Environment like GNOME?